As usual, the Celts took the up-front hit: Ireland v Wales was cancelled postponed, followed by Treviso v Ulster and Zebre v Ospreys. Then came the news that Mako Vunipola was self-isolating from the England camp, although apparently it’s okay to infect the Saracens camp. (They’re relegated anyway: who cares?) Today’s shocking news is that Italy v England is also sacrificed to Covid-19.
But fear not, rugby fans! There is one person on our side, one person who knows that it’s all a big hoax. A person whose intimate involvement with Scottish golf courses has led to a love of rugby, inspired by Gavin Hastings.
“I think the 3.4% [death rate] is really a false number.
“Now, this is just my hunch, based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it’s very mild – they’ll get better very rapidly, they don’t even see a doctor, they don’t even call a doctor.
“You never hear about those people, so you can’t put them down in the category of the overall population, in terms of this corona flu, and/or virus. So you just can’t do that. So there is no reason for Six Nations matches to be deep-sixed. DBWR are just a bunch of wimps.”
This is of course very comforting, as everyone knows that Donald Trump’s hunches are enormously more accurate than the wild speculations of the World Health Organisation. While it’s true that a vast number of Americans won’t even call a doctor because they can’t afford to, deathly ill or not, the POTUS’s clarion call to laugh and snap our fingers at what the so-called experts are openly referring to as a pandemic will save our Six Nations and Pro-Woo.
The President is being undermined by snivelling lefties who are rejoicing at the thought of millions of people dying, economic Armageddon being unleashed, and – more importantly – rugby matches being cancelled, just to criticise The Donald. As the Guardian (itself a very dubious source) reports:
Peter Hegseth, a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekends, admonished Democrats’ criticism, saying: “They’re rooting for the coronavirus to spread. They’re rooting for it to grow. They’re rooting for the problem to get worse.”
“They’re probably jumping for joy,” Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt said about the Democrats’ reaction to Six Nations matches being cancelled.
OvallyBalls can also reveal that Donald Trump is behind Vunipola’s decision to train with the Saracens:
“If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better, and then when you do have a death, like you’ve had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, I believe you had one in New York.”
While it turns out that no-one has yet died from coronavirus in New York (it’s only Trump’s home state, so why should he know?), the President’s message is clear: Get to work, you slackers, and you will be healed. Front up to the scrummage. Un-cancel the rugby matches. Work makes you free of coronavirus. Unless you’re dead.
Televisual rugby feasts not cancelled as yet:
Friday 6th March
| Sunwolves 14 – 47 Brumbies | 03:45 | Sky Sports Mix |
| Crusaders 24 – 20 Reds | 06:05 | Sky Sports Action |
| Waratahs 14 – 51 Chiefs | 08:15 | Sky Sports Action |
| Dragons 25 – 37 Treviso (really?) | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| England 22 – 23 Wales U20s | 19:45 | BT Sport Action |
| Worcester 10 – 16 Saints | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 7th March
| Hurricanes 15 – 24 Blues | 06:0t | Sky Sports Action |
| Rebels 37 – 17 Lions | 08:15 | Sky Sports Action |
| England 66 – 7 Wales (women) | 12:05 | S4C / Sky Sports Action |
| Sharks v Los Jaguares | 13:05 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Bulls v Highlanders | 15:15 | Sky Sports Arena |
| England v Wales | 16:45 | ITV / S4C |
| Scotland v France (women) | 19:45 | BBC Alba / website/ button |
Sunday 8th March
| Bristol v Harlequins | 13:00 | BT Sport 1 |
| Scotland v France | 15:00 | BBC One / website / button |
Ovally Balls 
I met Claud from the Apprentice when I was wasted and told him he was fired. I still laugh a little when I think back to the withering look he gave me.
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What’s a ‘corrie’?
It is a bowl shaped valley caused by glacial erosion. Usually at the “source” end of the glacier, so at the high point of the terrain.
Also called a cirque or a cwm (the latter, whilst Welsh in roots, is also an accepted term in English for you scrabble enthusiasts)
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Where I live now there’s a bloke who, apparently, used to be a presenter/expert on a BBC antiques programme. I was in the local Chinese takeaway and he walked in and ordered “two chicken omelettes with chips”.
I have no idea what his name is or what programmes he was one
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Weirdly, “cwm” in Welsh means valley (of any kind). Cwm Rhondda etc..
Whilst in English it is a very specific kind of valley (the one also called a corrie or a cirque)
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……cultural appropriation!
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Cirque, of course, comes from the French for ‘circus’ since a corrie/cwm is shaped a bit like an ampitheatre (i.e. the Roman circus)
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Of course, you can’t get a cwm without some serious plucking in the bergschrund
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not forgetting the ensuing arretes
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………..and erratics, of course
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Too many aretes and you are in danger of a pyramidal peak forming
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You must need a lot of mortar to make a corrie cast then.
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Erratics? I’ll never go in for those ice-rafting shenanigans
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give me a nice reliable drumlin any time. Or a sweet sweet terminal moraine
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Too many aretes and you are in danger of a pyramidal peak forming
or, to give it the more traditional name, a glacial horn
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The Corries started out as a folk band before finding fame as a duo featuring Roy Williamson and Ronnie Brown.
Williamson wrote Flower of Scotland
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The best part of Geography for me at school was drawing section views of hanging valleys and various rock formations etc
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I always thought Cwm meant “help me”
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Williamson wrote Flower of Scotland
Fuck me, that explains it! When I was in Scotland years ago I wandered around trying to find a version of FoS being belted out at Murrayfield – including going to bloody Murrayfield and everyone kept looking blankly at me and saying “you mean the Corries version?” Never found one.
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Pingos
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I did Geography as a degree and some of these terms are a real blast from the glacial geomorphological past
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Where’s Chimpie? This sort of talk is his bread and butter (albeit only toasted on one side…).
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Pfft. Mere geomorphology
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I like stories
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oh, nice one Ticht, took me a minute or two but well played sir.
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I just tuned into the South Africa schools rugby that TomP linked to earlier, it’s a really good standard, the lads playing now must be older than the first game of the day, they are certainly much bigger.
The first game had a team called Busy Bees, I was rooting for them because of the name but it looked like they were up against it. I only had time for the first ten minutes so no idea what happened.
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Ticht, just tuned in for Boland Landbou v SACS (Percy Montgomery’s old school). The last 4 games are classic Winelands v Southern Suburbs games. The Winelands teams BL, the Paarl schools and Paul Roos usually win.
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Busy Bee are from Langa in Cape Town. The Cape Flats really. A real area for rugby development, probably loads of talented players who wouldn’t get seen otherwise.
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Paul Roos look huge
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Boland Landbou looked very powerful, Tam
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BL are farmers, ticht. It’s an agricultural college. Tiny numbers compared to the other schools but consistently strong.
Venter looks very direct and solid.
The Paul Roos 11 also played for SA schools 7z last month.
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And Wynberg score.
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You can tell this is serious stuff at this level, these boys are highly coached
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ticht, do you remember Pieter Rossouw, a long-legged winger in the 1990s, scored 4 in a test once v France?
He was the back division coach for the Bulls when they won Super Rugby in 2009 and 2010. He’s now head coach at Paarl Gimnasium, who play in one of the two later games.
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Iks – our flight gets in at 15:50, and if we make the right train, it gets us into Heidelberg at 17:11.
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The certainly rings a bell, Tom
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Soon to be Edinburgh legend Venter is making a lot of carries
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Good game this, I feel like opening a beer
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Great break by the little full back but he got a sandwich of two massive lads crunching him.
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I was cheering him on Tom, oh nice try from Wynberg
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Oh no, stream freeze just at the last minute of the game
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Thanks for the link, btw Tomp, Venter looks very promising
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If you find time to watch the last game – Paarl Gim v Bishops – the two Paarl Gim centres are more highly rated than Venter. And the Bishops outside half is a really really good player.
Venter was fine, though.
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Funny how times change. I recall as a fourteen year old being told as a group of forwards that a good way to get someone to release the ball in a maul was to grope their goolies, and beware of the elbow that was about to come your way. The coach in question had played at a high representative, but not International, level. Another coach, a former International, later mentioned that that was maybe the old way of doing things, but was increasingly being frowned upon.
Good grief, that was almost 40 years ago. WTF?
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There have been a few lads who were down the pecking order a wee bit who have come to Scotland and done well – Sam Johnson, Nick Grigg, Kyle Steyn and Duhan van der Merwe are the most recent ones, I guess.
It is a big deal for Venter, he won’t have any family near him I don’t suppose but he will have the South African contingent to look after him. I hope he does well, not just for the sake of Edinburgh
Ach my youtube stream has gone down again
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It’s a big challenge for him, especially at such a young age.
Quite a few stand out schools players I saw when I was living in SA disappear after under 18. Some turn up a few years down the line, Herschell Jantjies is a good example of this.
There are fewer opportunities now than there was 4 or 5 years ago. The Bulls used to sign 40 or 50 kids out of school and they’d play Currie Cup Under 19 or Varsity Cup. The under 19 tournament got cancelled last year and so contracted numbers are way down. Part of the reason, I guess, Venter’s looked outside SA.
I’ve said it many times on here but Grey College from Bloemfontein are maybe my favourite rugby team to watch – beautiful stuff they play.
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Thauma, I’ll send you a mail so we can see if it works out timewise. Sorry if I gave you the impression that I was offering a tour of Heidelberg’s underbelly after dark!
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Paarl Gim supporters seem to be singing a variation of Flower of Scotland
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I have to say that the atmosphere at these games has been terrific
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Affies and arch-rivals Pretoria Boys sing versions of Flower of Scotland as well. And some of the schools around Durban do.
It’s cos they don’t have the skillz to sing a version of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau
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ticht, that kid, Ethan James, is one of the really rated lads. Completely different player to Venter.
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